Five Things: Stargate
by somehowunbroken
Summary: Yes, it's the "five things" meme. I've a few written and a ton more to tackle, so hopefully they'll find their way here. It's probably going to be John-centric because I love me some John. Also, I may cheat and put in some SG1; skip 'em if you hate 'em.
1. Chapter 1

Yes, I know, the dreaded "five things" meme. I love it. Bear with me or skip :)

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Five secrets of John Sheppard's that John doesn't know Evan Lorne has discovered

1. John knows the name of every single person who has died in Atlantis since they've arrived. There's no distinction in his mind between military or civilian, killed by Wraith or Genii or Replicators or sheer bad luck. He knows every name and every face, and sometimes when he locks himself in his office "to do some paperwork," Evan knows that the only paper involved is the label on the bottle of whiskey he keeps in the bottom drawer and the work is in keeping the names and the faces fresh in his mind. It's torture, of a kind, but Evan allows John the ritual, understanding that this is John's own way of grieving.

2. John keeps a small picture of his family tucked inside his day-planner. It's an old photograph – John's probably only seven or eight, and his brother Dave is slightly older, slightly taller to his left, and their parents are standing behind the boys. John's father is smiling in the direction of the camera, as is Dave, but John's face is smiling up at his mother, and she's clearly laughing at something as she looks down at him.

On the back, a neat hand had written, "At Aunt Martha's, 1978." Below that, in a much messier scrawl, was written, "Mom's last vacation."

3. John's love for and devotion to his team is a secret to no one, but Evan knows that the same level of loyalty extends to everyone on Atlantis, military and civilian alike. If any member of any off-world team were to get into trouble, John would run through the Gate himself and dodge every stunner blast or speeding bullet until the lost was found, and would bring them home even if he was injured himself. From McKay and Teyla and Ronon to AR-5 to the people in Food Services, these are _John's People_, and he doesn't leave his people behind.

Which is why Evan knows that somewhere, in some part of him, John is still looking for Ford.

4. John sings in the shower. This is a secret that Evan found out entirely by accident, and one that he knows he will never, ever share, even under pain of death.

It was the end of the day; not a particularly bad day, but John had been tired and had left earlier than usual, leaving Evan to finish things up. Evan had gladly done so. It was his personal opinion that John did too much – tried to take too much responsibility, tried to do too many people's jobs, tried to be Superman, and it was patently ridiculous.

As was his habit, he was double-checking all of John's paperwork. It wasn't that John was careless or anything even remotely like that, but if a mistake was made it could take weeks to rectify, so _better safe than waiting for the Daedalus_ was Evan's mantra. He'd found a requisition form from one of the science departments that hadn't been signed, stuck between two other forms (from the same department, Evan noticed, and what could they possibly need three hundred boxes of nail polish remover for?). Evan set it aside and, when he finished with his work, picked it up. He'd just stop by John's quarters, get him to sign off on it, and then take care of sending everything through in the morning.

When he reached John's quarters, Evan ran his hand over the door chimes and waited. He frowned a minute later when the door didn't open and silently reached out with his mind to touch the link to Atlantis that everyone with the ATA gene felt. His own gene wasn't nearly as strong as John's, but Evan had worked hard to learn how to do some basic things pretty well, which he used now to locate John.

Atlantis said that he was in his quarters.

Evan rang the chimes again, waiting a full two minutes before tapping his radio. "Colonel Sheppard," he said confidently into the mic. He waited another minute before using his military override codes to enter the room, worried at the other man's lack of response.

He heard the shower as soon as the door slid open. Evan stopped in the doorway, already turning to leave, when he heard the voice coming from the bathroom. It was a Beatles song, if he remembered correctly, though he didn't know the title. He shook himself a few seconds later and closed the doors behind him as he walked to his own quarters. The form could wait until the morning.

_Who knew,_ Evan reflected to himself, _that Sheppard had a good voice?_

5. John is totally, completely, head-over-heels, ridiculously in love with Atlantis.

Everyone with the gene can feel her, to some extent. Evan has figured out during his time in the City that those with the gene naturally, himself included, have a stronger bond than those with Dr. Beckett's gene therapy. It's why McKay is always calling for one of them or a handful of others on the base to act as what John calls "Ancient light switches" – time spent touching things and thinking _on, on, on _(sometimes immediately followed by _OFF OFF OFF OFF_).

He can tell, even without being told, that John's connection to the City is stronger than anyone else's. He suspected it when he read those first mission reports – of the City, dark and silent, lighting as soon as John stepped through the Gate; it's confirmed in his mind every time he sees Atlantis do something automatically for John that Evan couldn't coax her to do if he spent hours trying. It's little things, mostly; doors open as he walks towards them, and Evan knows he never thinks _open_, lights turn on and off as he walks through the halls, and once, he heard Johnny Cash piped through the corridors, following John as he walked around the City after a particularly bad mission. John is in tune with the City as none of the rest of them are – as none of them could possibly be.

And John is enraptured by it. It's easy for Evan to see, but then he's always been good at seeing what others hide. John still marvels at Atlantis, at his power over her, at the ease he has doing things that he watches others struggle with. Evan has seen the man find people in the City without the help of a handheld scanner like the rest of them use; the Colonel just squinted, cocked his head, and walked down the correct hallways until they stood outside Dr. Solivert's lab, where they had found Dr. Parrish. John had just shrugged when Evan asked him, but Evan knew – he had asked the City, and she had responded.

John treats the City reverently. Sure, he's on missions a lot, and he's stalking around most of the time when he's on duty, but when he thinks nobody is watching, John will trail his hands along the walls as he walks, or stand and stare at the architecture, or watch the sunsets over the City from a Jumper. Evan is certain that some of it – probably even most of it – is unconscious, but it shows John's feelings all the same.

And when they were forced to leave, when Helia and the others came back, John spent six weeks on Earth, wandering like a man without a soul when he wasn't off-world. When they returned, Evan was almost shocked that John's smile couldn't replenish their drained ZPMs by itself. And Atlantis welcomed John, her favored son, back with open arms.

The City shows John things, too, like the balcony that he retreats to when he's upset, and she modifies the citywide lifesigns detectors to give him time alone. She shows him rooms he doesn't understand but that he shows McKay, and Evan sees the scientist's awe – _how did you find this? We've been looking for months for something like this!_ – as he scurries around, ordering John to "do the light switch thing." It shows John the best place to see the moons at night and the quarters with the biggest rooms when Teyla needs more space for herself and the baby and where the Ancients kept their spare medical supplies when Keller runs out of gauze before the Daedalus can arrive.

John might be in love with Atlantis, but Evan can see that the feeling is mutual.


	2. Chapter 2

Five times John's men were proud to have him as CO

1. Captain Collins leads AR-3, which consists of himself, Sergeant Thomas, Officer Hamit, and a scientist named Amy Constance. They're all good people, for all that they're fairly nondescript in the day-to-day operations of Atlantis, and their main job is to oversee the "strictly science" missions that come up in the city. It's not that they're non-combatant; far from it, actually, with three members from three different militaries and a scientist with a black belt. It's just that their primary objective is science, not ass-kicking.

When they miss a check-in, and then a second, it's John who gears up, who gathers his team in a Jumper and flies through the Gate, because he's the one who doesn't leave people behind.

And then the Gate is opening back up, and the Jumper's flying back through, calling for a medical team in the Jumper bay, and Elizabeth can't help but notice that it's Teyla calling over the radio. She hurries to the bay herself and stares in the back of the Jumper, quickly identifying every head she sees, and coming up two short.

"Where is John?" she calls into the ruckus, hoping to be heard. Teyla looks up from where she is kneeling next to Officer Hamit, holding gauze to a bleeding gash in his forehead.

"They had taken Captain Collins away," she says, meeting Elizabeth's eyes. "He ordered us all back to the Jumper and told us to get these three home. He said that he would follow shortly."

Shortly in John's book is apparently three hours, when the Gate finally reactivates and Elizabeth jumps from her seat, running to see for herself. John appears, looking exhausted, Collins draped across his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Elizabeth doesn't remember calling for a medical team but somehow they're already running into the Gate room, pulling Collins from John's grasp and descending into medical terminology. Carson turns to John, reaching for a stomach wound that is clear even from the balcony o the control room, but John shrugs him off and mutters something, and Carson frowns but returns his attention to Collins.

John collapses while walking to the infirmary. When he comes to, hours later, his first words are to ask about Collins. The young man peers out from behind the machinery between them, sitting up and looking a little ragged but otherwise okay.

"Thank you, sir," he says in a soft voice that would break if it were any louder. "I would have – if you hadn't –"

John surveys his broken arm, pats down his side to where they'd patched up the hole that had been shot across his abdomen, and gives Collins a grin. "We got off easy, then," he says, and that's the last of the conversation, neither again mentioning how John walked into Hell and nearly died himself to save a young man he barely knew.

2. When news comes that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has finally been repealed, John's eating lunch in the mess hall with Lorne, going over schedules and rotations. There's a sort of stunned silence when the call comes over the intercom, one more announcement tacked onto the end of the weekly report to the city. After a minute of near-absolute stillness, John rolls his eyes, stands, hauls Lorne to his feet, and makes a very public display of groping him as he kisses the stunned Major. When he's done, he sits back down and continues eating his pie, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The stunned silence continues for about ten seconds before the mess hall erupts into frantic conversation.

Lorne sits back down, blushing at the cheers, and leans closer to John. "Sir, I don't – I'm not-"

"Neither am I," John replies casually, licking the cherry-like filling from the end of his fork. "But half the base has now seen the military commander of Atlantis making out with his male XO, so there won't be any problems for people who actually are."

It turns out later that he was right. There weren't.

3. AR-4 and AR-7 are together on P4X-779, on a scientific mission that has the Natural Sciences division swooning. They make the first two check-ins fine, but when they run an hour late for the third, John sends Lorne and his men out to check on them. Lorne returns twenty minutes later, his face ashen, stumbling through with Dr. Carlson draped over one shoulder.

Lorne reports a cave-in; the rest of his team had stayed behind to dig out Four and Seven, but Carlson had been the only one left on the surface, and she had been badly injured. Lorne hesitates before adding, "The lifesigns detector only picked up two more, sir," but John is already gearing up, calling the combat engineers, getting out to the planet himself.

By the time all is said and done, Dr. Carlson is all that remains of AR-4 and Sergeant Willoughs all of AR-7. The rest of both teams had been crushed by the falling rocks. They'd managed to drag another Marine out, Gunney Grayson, but he hadn't even made it back to the Gate.

John personally oversees every body recovery, records a message to every family, organizes each individual memorial service, and brings another counselor in to make sure someone is available to talk for weeks after the accident. It leaves everyone shaken – they understood going in that the Wraith are a threat, that the Genii might kill them, but the ground itself had turned against Four and Seven. Nobody had been prepared for that. John, however, is there to help the survivors through.

When Willoughs finds out that he will never walk again, John gets him honorably discharged and keeps him on as a civilian contractor so he can stay in the City, becoming the science team's personal Ancient light switch. And when Carlson breaks down at the memorial service, John stands next to her, arm around her waist though it clearly makes him uncomfortable, and lets her cry on his shoulder. When she requests reassignment two weeks later, he asks where she wants to go, and pulls strings to make sure she gets there.

Throughout the ordeal, John never makes a fuss, never tries to pass those responsibilities on, just quietly takes care of his people, no matter what.

4. When Atlantis lands on Earth, there is a flurry of activity for a while, people trying to get it back to Pegasus. The IOA hems and haws, as they are prone to do, and after a while it seems that even Landry doesn't want the expedition to go back. Finally, seven months after the city lands in the oceans of Earth, John leaves for a three-day meeting with the IOA. He sits silently, listening to the words pass over and around him, and when he's finally asked to say his piece, he simply leans forward and says into the microphone, "We'd like to go home now."

The IOA rebuts; _you are home, we can't afford to, what if, what if, what if_. John just leans back in his chair, one eyebrow raised, and when the IOA finally agree to let the ship – the city – leave, Jack O'Neill gets up to shake John's hand.

"Taking a page out of my book," he says cheekily, and John grins.

"We don't leave our people behind," he replies. "Right now, none of us are where we belong , and I'm just trying to get us back home."

5. When Mr. Woolsey retires, years after Atlantis is back in Pegasus and years before any of the rest of them will even think of doing so, John is the one to organize the ceremonies, the parties, and the goodbye present. Woolsey is speechless when he opens the recordings – Brahms and Mozart and Bach, al by the greatest symphonies Earth has to offer – and even more so when he opens the box containing hundreds and hundreds of letters – one from each person on Atlantis and several from others John has managed to track down between the two galaxies, thanking him for his service and his leadership.

John gives him a sharp military salute as he takes his final trip through the Stargate.


End file.
